Death By the Glass

Description

When the owner of Vinifera, a posh Napa Valley eatery, contacts detective-chef Sunny McCoskey, it sounds like an ordinary consulting job helping a restaurant transition from one chef to another. In fact, the only thing unusual about Vinifera is the inordinate charm of its new chef, Sante Dominguez. In an uncharacteristic display of romantic carpe diem - largely inspired by her friend Rivka - Sunny plunges into a steamy affair unlike anything she has experienced before. But it's soon clear that all is not what it seems at Vinifera, or with Sante. Before long, Sunny is onto a trail of wine fraud and corruption stretching back twenty years and involving some of the valley's key players, not to mention a collection of wine some people would kill for...and did. Death by the Glass continues the adventures of Sunny McCoskey, her assistant Rivka Chavez, wine merchant Monty Lenstrom, and the rest of gang from Sharpshooter with a tale of dark secrets, big cabs, and a cook with an appetite for murder.

Nadia Gordon is a San Francisco Bay Area-based writer.

"Nadia Gordon's second Napa Valley mystery about chef/sleuth Sunny McCoskey, is the perfect book to read while eating -- preferably something slightly more upscale than a Big Mac. After dishing up 140 plates of her own small restaurant's signature hand-cranked fettucine with wild mushroom sauce for a gala charity dinner at Vinifera -- a fancier, more famous operation in Yountville -- Sunny learns that one of Vinifera's owners has been poisoned while drinking an expensive bottle of Burgundy. No glass or bottle is safe after that, and eventually every mushroom becomes deadly. Jolly, high-calorie pleasure, almost as good as a trip to the scene itself." -Chicago Tribune "Egos as poisonous as false morels are the special of the day in Gordon's second Napa foodie mystery. Of course the reason chef Sunny McCoskey (Sharpshooter, 2002) agrees to cook her famous wild mushroom pasta for a swanky Napa Valley benefit dinner is that she sympathizes with the Open Space Coalition, but the fact that hunky star chef Andre Morales is hosting the event is a significant incentive as well. While preparing her sauce in the high-tech kitchen of Vinifera, Morales's restaurant, Sunny discovers that the jar of dried morels contains several poisonous false specimens. Spending a wonderful night with Morales compensates Sunny for having to make do with supermarket mushrooms and white truffle oil, but the trouble at Vinifera is just beginning. One of the owners, obnoxious and demanding Nathan Osborne, is found at his home, dead of heart failure while sipping a $200-a-glass Burgundy. Having discovered that Nathan and her new beau were pouring counterfeit wine, however, Sunny doesn't buy the death scene setup. So she simultaneously investigates and alienates everyone at Vinifera: handsome Andre, muscular bartender Nick, tattooed waitress Dahlia, snobby sommelier Remy, and Nathan's business partner Eliot. Sunny's neurotic habit of sticking her toque where it doesn't belong is the only sour note among the otherwise delectable details of Napa Valley food culture that Gordon serves up." -Kirkus "Small restaurant-owner/chef Sunny (Sharpshooter) once again takes on the role of sleuth after someone murders fancy restaurant owner Nathan Osborne. Unfortunately, the prime suspect is her new lover, also a chef, but familiar characters assist. A likable second." -Library Journal Napa Valley chef Sonia "Sunny" McCoskey, introduced in Sharpshooter (2002), is once again investigating the seamier side of the restaurant and wine world. Cooking at a charity benefit, she meets Andre Morales, chef at Vinifera, the trendy restaurant of the moment. Romance blooms until one of Vinifera's owners turns up dead at his home with a broken bottle of rare wine nearby. Although the police think that he died of natural causes, Sunny is suspicious. It seems that the restaurant was not profitable despite its popularity. The arrogant French sommelier may be involved in wine fraud, and chef Andre did not get along with the late owner. Sunny's unwelcome probing puts her in danger, but the guilty party emerges at a cozy toast to the not-so-dearly departed. Sunny's adventures offer readers an amusing romp in the culinary underworld. -Booklist